


The Limitations of Mechanics

by manicker



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manicker/pseuds/manicker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ABANDONED<br/>“Really, Three,” Rabbit said, shaking his head. “The Spine doesn’t even like surprises. If he was having a party for himself then he would have informed himself of it weeks in advance.” Once again, he turned to Hatchworth. “Did he say anything else?”<br/>“Nothing much.” Hatchworth said. “Just asked whether or not I had ever been in love.”<br/>“But, the Spine never keeps his ladies a secret. Everyone knows when he’s courting a new bot.” Three said. “Rabbit, what do you think?”<br/>Rabbit had gone quiet. “I think we should forget all about it. I think it's the Spine’s business and we shouldn’t be discussing it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 29/07/14: Please consider this work abandoned. I would have loved to have written more, but listening to the Bennetts talking shit all the time and then watching them whine and squirm when they're called out on it was getting exhausting. I wish them luck in all their endeavours and shit, but I'd like to see them laughing about triggers after a four hour panic attack hahahahahaha

Hatchworth was completed in a rush ready to be deployed to Africa, and it was only the great need for completed robots that meant his poor eyesight was overlooked and he was allowed to join the other bots. He was powered on for seven seconds, enough time to check his spectacles were doing their job, and then he was powered down. The next time he was awake he was in a tent in Africa, being told to hurt and to maim and to destroy. Some of the bots Hatchworth was powered on with, the ones that he understood were the Colonel’s first creations and generally his most treasured, seemed affected by the violence, as if they had been the ones hurt, but they still appeared fully functional.  
In the months after their return, one robot would disappear to the labs and come back a week later with a new set of skills and a new job. A robot would enter the lab poised to spray the enemy with bullets or burn them to ashes, and come out knowing how to fix things up or how to drive a carriage. They would laugh, they would joke, they would cry and they would argue. Sometimes they broke things and got things wrong. Hatchworth didn’t know how or why they had begun to behave in such a way, but he wasn’t sure he liked it. Of course, he wasn’t sure he didn’t like it either. The bots had originally been given the capabilities to feel fear and something akin to pain when he was damaged to the point where his or her existence was threatened. He had never laughed, he had never cried, he had never felt anything beyond the reactions he was fitted with for the battlefield. He knew of feelings, of course he did. His head was filled with the stories of the men and women in the books he’d been reading since the other bots had stopped talking to him. He knew the mechanics of happiness and sadness and melancholy and love. Every word was there, ingrained in his mind, as real as any memory, but still he had no ability to experience these events first hand. When the first bot to be upgraded was found, photoreceptors dark and unseeing, having been critically injured by a horse in the stables, Hatchworth knew from his books that what he should feel was sadness. The only one still fitted with a weapon, for defence purposes the staff supposed, he was taken into the field to shoot the beast. He barely remembered the weeping stable boy by the gate, or the way the blood caught on the dry summer grass. He just walked back towards the house ready to spend another day in the library, reading about all the things that made a man.  
“You there!”  
Hatchworth, upon entering the entrance hall, turned to find the colonel, head tilted, staring at him. He stood to attention to signal his understanding.  
“You shot that poor beast.”  
“Yes.” The response crackled from his phonograph. The colonel was shocked.  
“You’re the stove!”  
“I do not understand. Please rephrase or repeat.” The voice of Samuel, the stable boy who had recorded Hatchworth’s responses, recorded on wax cylinder almost a year previously. While the idea had shown promise as a way to limit the amount of time spent on each bot while retaining their ability to respond to simple questions and orders, Iris had deemed Hatchworth, the only bot fitted with the phonograph system as opposed to the (complicated and time consuming) device the other bots used, “inhuman” and “downright scary”. On reflection, using a child’s voice on a 6 foot killing machine was not the best decision Peter had made, but at the time he had just been grabbing whatever was closest. It was just unfortunate that it was Samuel that had been eating his supper in the kitchens when Peter had gone scouting for someone to record.  
“You were created from a cast iron stove installed in my workshop.”  
“Yes.”  
“You were the thirty eighth bot to be completed.”  
“Yes.”  
“You have not been upgraded like the other bots.”  
“No.”  
Peter paused. “Do you want to be like the rest?”  
“I do not understand. Please rephrase or repeat.”  
“Do you want to be upgraded like the other bots?”  
This time, there was no answer.  
“Did you hear me?”  
“Yes.”  
“Did you understand the question?”  
“Yes.”  
Peter repeated his original question, this time getting no response at all.  
“Follow me.” The colonel said, with a glow in his eyes quite unlike those of Hatchworth’s photoreceptors.


	2. Chapter 2

“Wrench?!” The colonel cried, bursting into the laboratory with the energy he usually reserved for a new colour of explosion.  
A sparse, dull robot shuffled into view, a battered cap on his head. “Sir?”  
“One more for upgrades.”  
“Sir, another bot wouldn’t be economical. We have bots occupying all the technical positions in the house. We agreed-”  
“Never mind that, Wrench, this one used to be the stove that sat in the corner there! I looked for him after-” he cut off, briefly distracted. “After the battle.” He turned to Hatchworth. “You did slip through the net, didn’t you? You little rascal you.”  
“Yes.”  
The colonel laughed. “First thing’s first, we’ll fit you with a full voice box, get rid of that awful child’s voice.”  
“Colonel,” Wrench said. “We have no components ready. To manufacture the elements required to make him fully functional would be entirely unnecessary and wasteful.”  
“Wrench, I won’t mince my words. You are beginning to get on my wick.”  
“Sorry, sir.”  
The colonel sighed. “You’re sure there aren’t enough parts to build him?”  
“Quite sure, Sir.”  
“Only… Oh never mind.”  
“Sir, I would like to take this moment to remind you that I am programmed to notify you when you cut off mid-sentence and let your temper tantrums and dramatic mannerisms hinder your work.”  
The colonel frowned. “I don’t remember fitting you with that.”  
“Iris would like you to know that she is not just a pretty womb.”  
“Yes, well.” Peter blushed. “No need to discuss all that in the workshop, is there?”  
“No, sir.”  
“There’s a good lad.” He turned to Hatchworth, who was sat on the bench. “It is certainly shame. He would have made a fine service bot. If only we’d known he was here. I’m sure I did a head count before we left the port…”  
“Sir, if I may, perhaps we should check for damage before he goes back upstairs.”  
“What? Oh. Yes. Well then. Go ahead.”  
“Sir, if I may, after the incident with 24, it was agreed that I would only follow orders pertaining to the maintenance of the bots and not with diagnostics.”  
“Oh, very well then Wrench!”  
“Very good, sir.”  
Hatchworth was shocked out of his half power state by the Colonel unbuttoning the shirt he had been given upon entering the house. The colonel pulled it off his frame with a roughness quite unsuited to a bot with such delicate arms as Hatchworth.  
“There is no obvious damage to the exterior at least.” He said, flicking the handle on the hatch. “At first glance it appears-”  
Whoosh.  
“Sir?” Wrench said. The colonel’s face was bathed in a faint blue glow.  
“Just like Three.” He whispered.  
“He has a rift?”  
“Oh, Wrench. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. It’s-”  
At that moment a sandwich the size of a cat came flying towards the colonel and hit him square between the eyes.  
“Wrench. Start work on the voice box.”  
“Yes sir.” Wrench began rifling through the boxes on the shelves behind him.  
“38?”  
“Yes.”  
“Power down.”

“38?”  
Peter sighed.  
“38? Can you hear me?”  
There was no answer.  
“38?”  
“Sir, this is the thirteenth-”  
“The horse.” Hatchworth said. The voice, while not unlike the stable boy’s, had taken on a disjointed, mechanical feel similar to Three and The Spine. It was – dare he say it – kind of cute. Childlike and innocent like Three’s, expressive and dynamic like Rabbit’s but human like the Spine’s. The use of a discarded prototype for Three was a gamble, due to the general incompatibility of the first few bots and the later ones, but it seemed on this occasion they were blessed with good luck.  
“The horse.”  
“Pardon?” Peter said, puzzled.  
“The horse they had me shoot.”  
“What about it?” Peter was confused. None of the other bots had spoken so extensively when powered on with the upgrades. (Apart from Upgrade herself, the Nurse-bot who entertained the boys during the day. She was the first to be upgraded, earning her the name she so proudly announced to anyone and everyone she could find.)  
“It was alive.” Hatchworth roused Peter from him thoughts.  
“Yes, it was. You understand life?”  
“And I killed it.”  
“Yes you did. What do you feel?”  
“Remorse. Guilt. Sadness.”  
“Why?”  
“Because it was alive and I killed it without remorse, guilt or sadness.”  
“You shouldn’t feel remotely guilty. That horse was dangerous. It killed your brother for goodness sake.”  
“Those things are not my family. Family means love without condition. They abandoned me as if I were nothing. They knew the robots were being upgraded but they never came to get me.”  
“I didn’t know.” Rabbit’s voice shocked them all. Peter and Hatchworth turned. “I didn’t know you had made it back.”  
“Rabbit, this is-” Peter began.  
“I didn’t know there was another bot, Pappy I promise.”  
“It’s quite alright Rabbit.” He gestured towards Hatchworth. “This is Thirty Eight. Why don’t you take him to meet Three? He has a rift just like his, you know.”  
“Yes Pappy.”


	3. Chapter 3

Rabbit shuffled down the corridor awkwardly.  
“Thirty Eight?”  
“Yes Rabbit?”  
“They left you on your own all that time? With no one to play cards with or talk to or- or-”  
“Yes.”  
“Weren’t you lonely?”  
“No. But I am now that I can be lonely.”  
“That’s horrible. I feel bad.”  
“Me too.”  
They stood in silence for moment.  
“That lamp is extremely beautiful.” Hatchworth smiled, reaching a finger out to touch the glass.  
“Yes she is.”  
“She?” Hatchworth asked.  
“Yes. She.” Rabbit said. “You see, I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”  
“I apologise, Rabbit. I was lead to believe that lamps did not have a gender.” Hatchworth asked. He turned to the lamp. “Please accept my most heartfelt apologies.”  
“Well, right now she’s just a lamp. But one day she might get emotions like you got, Hatchy, and I don’t want her to be lonely when she wakes up and remembers.”  
“Hatchy?” Hatchworth was puzzled. “Are you refering to me?”  
“Uh-huh.” Rabbit said, with a grin. “I figured, since you have the hatch and all, I could call you Hatchy.”  
Hatchworth smiled. “Hatchy.” He said, trying out the sound. “I like it. It suits me.”  
Rabbit’s head quirked. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but the other bots don’t have speech patterns like yours. I’ve been around young bots my entire life, and it take weeks for them to break the basic speech patterns.”  
“I was in the library for a long time. I would read the books and study the characters’ words and emotions. I knew the things I should say should I ever feel. Now I feel, and I am putting the data to use. I particularly liked the cookery and housekeeping books and the ones where they fall in love.”  
“I could never read so good.” Rabbit tapped his head. “Not fitted with the right wiring, ‘pparently. The Spine likes reading, though, and the Jon likes stories. C’mon, we’ll go meet them. I think they’re still in the recreation room.”

“Guys, this is Hatchy. He’s new and he likes reading.”  
The Jon was the first to look up. He gave Hatchworth a wide smile, and stood up from floor to greet him.  
“Well hello, Hatchy!” he said, the ink drawings flying everywhich way as he shot up to greet his new friend. They stood about the same height, so the Jon, as he would one day be known, stuck out his hand to shake. “I’m Three! I mean, that’s my name, not my age. I’m only a little younger than Rabbit in actual fact,” He boasted. He added in a stage whisper: “Although I can run much faster and speak much better.”  
“Can not!” Rabbit said, pouting as hard as his metal face would let him.  
“Can too!”  
“Control yourselves, gentlemen.” A deep, rumbling voice came from the armchair by the fire. The Jon blew a remarkably metallic raspberry and went back to his drawings.  
“Oh Spine! Spine! Come meet Hatchy!”  
The Spine rose as he always did to greet newcomers. He unfolded his limbs, and steadied himself for the slow ascent to his full height. Pistons hissed, joints popped and his beloved Spine shivered to produce the bell like sound he was trying so hard to rid himself of. Shaking off this embarrassment, he went straight into a formal bow, and rose to meet the eyes of his aquaintance.  
"Hunyrtgianflurb." He said, as eloquently as he could manage. Hatchworth, not having been properly acquainted with The Spine before, took this to be normal behaviour.”  
“Hello, the Spine.” He said as clearly as possible. “I’m Thirty Eight, but you can call me Hatchy.” Hatchworth extended his hand to shake. The Spine did not return the gesture. He simply nodded unable to break eye contact. The Jon coughed.  
"Spine, did your voice box jam?"  
The Spine's head snapped round wildly to meet Rabbit's eyes. “Forgive me. I must see the Colonel at once.” And with that he swept from the room.


	4. Chapter 4

The Spine hurried down the hallways and stairs towards Pappy’s workshop trying to make sense of what had happened. This was how he was supposed to feel about Malfunction and the rest of the female bots, Pappy had said so. He said that all the bots were capable of romantic love, and had explained that one day he would meet a very special girl bot that he would want to spend the rest of his existence with.  
He had immediately gone to a library, the place he went most often for advice about life, to read up on love. He read about courting and marriage proposals, despair and frustrations, rejection and compulsion and jealousy and joy – and it sounded delicious. He began to court girl bot after girl bot, hoping to find someone who set his soul on fire like in the books.  
Now he had felt it, and it was as if a dragon was swimming in his boiler, as if his core had simultaneously imploded and exploded and there was energy coursing through his wiring – but it wasn’t for a girl bot. It was a male like himself. He knew he had to fall for a woman, and for a man to love a man was against the natural order. Something must have gone terribly wrong.  
“Pappy!” He shouted as he got closer to the lab. “Pappy! Pappy!”

“Pappy!”  
Peter’s ears pricked up. He was tightening Wrench’s neck joints when he heard it.  
“Pappy! Pappy!”  
It was Spine, and the very fact that he was calling him Pappy meant that it was serious.  
“In here, dear boy! What on earth is wrong?”  
He leapt into the room with a wild look about him. “I’ve felt it.”  
“Felt what?”  
“Romantic love.”  
“Fantastic, dear boy!” The colonel walked over and slapped him on the back. “Who’s the lucky lady, then?”  
If it was possible for a robot to gulp, then that was what happened. “Colonel, something is terribly, terribly wrong.”  
“The Spine?” Peter asked, as he noticed oil beginning to well around his photoreceptors. “Come here, my boy, we’ll clear it up. It can’t be so bad. Wrench, give us a moment would you?”  
“Sir.” He said, picking up the debris from his repairs and leaving the room with an audible sigh.  
“Now, the Spine.” Peter said when Wrench was firmly out of earshot. “What could be so awful as to upset you like this?”  
The Spine let Peter take a cloth to his face. “You said I’d find a girl bot and I’d just know that she was the one and I’d never want to leave her side.”  
Peter sighed. He had given that advice while still deeply in love with Delilah, and now realised it had not been entirely accurate.  
“Well, it isn’t always like that I suppose.”  
“It isn’t?” The Spine said hopefully.  
“No, my dear boy, it isn’t. I spent a long time chasing Delilah. You remember her, the woman I told you about, from the Cavalcadium?”  
“Of course.”  
“Well, I loved her more than anything. I spent a good portion of my life trying to marry her. You see, she was everything I should have had in a wife. She was beautiful, eloquent and most of all, she had the most brilliant scientific mind of her age. I knew that I should marry her, and I felt as if I loved her. When she died, I was sad, sadder than a man could ever be. And then Iris and I…” He paused, and looked at the Spine.  
The Spine dipped his photoreceptors. “I understand the mechanics of conception.”  
“Right. Of course. Well. That… Occurred. And for a while I felt wrong, as if I had betrayed Delilah by making myself happy. Once the boys were born and Iris and I were married, I stopped denying myself the happiness that Iris gave me. You see, Delilah was the one I thought I should have loved. I spent so long thinking about her and talking about her and wasting my time on her that she became the focus of my life. I was kidding myself if I thought she was the one. I spent all that time chasing what I thought I should have, that when real love came I was almost too scared and blinded by what I thought I should have to accept and return it.”  
“So you love Miss Iris even though she isn’t what you were expecting?”  
“Spine, I love Iris with all of my poor, defective heart. If you have found someone to love and they love you too, then nothing should stand in your way.” Peter smiled, and wiped a tear from his own eye.  
“You soft old son of a bitch.” Iris said from the doorway, making them both jump. “I love you too. Now come upstairs before Mrs Chatsworth has a heart attack. She can only keep those potatoes crispy for so long, you know.”  
Peter strode towards her and kissed her firmly on the mouth. He held her so tight the Spine was briefly concerned about him crushing her.  
The Spine smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hello.”  
Mrs Chatsworth nearly jumped out of her skin.  
“Is that you, Three dear?”  
Hatchworth stepped further into the room. “Three is upstairs. I was wondering how you made sandwiches?”  
Mrs Chatsworth, a red headed, rotund woman in her late forties, was used to finding Three in the Kitchens, begging for scraps for his "feasts". This was a new bot, and the bots from the house rarely entered the kitchens.  
“Shouldn’t you be upstairs?”  
“The other bots work in the house. The Colonel has no purpose for me. I used to read cookery books in the library before I had feelings and they said people made food in kitchens. Is this the kitchen?”  
“It is the kitchen.” She said, smiling proudly. “And I do make sandwiches, but not very often. Why, how do you make sandwiches?”  
“From my hatch. The Colonel says I have a rift like Three. They just come out of there. Would you like one?”  
“Well, I don’t see how I could say no!” She clapped her hands. “It sounds fascinating.”  
“Forgive me, I must unbutton my shirt to access the hatch.”  
“Go right ahead.”  
“Thank you.” He unbuttoned his shirt and reaching into his hatch, rummaged until his hand met bread. He pulled out a French baguette filled with cold sausage and cheese. “There you are.”  
Mrs Chatsworth was expecting an imaginary sandwich, like the imaginary cakes Three brought her in return for her scraps. She reached out and took the sandwich and, after checking the contents contained nothing too terrible, took a bite.  
“Mmmm.” She said. “This sandwich,” She mumbled through a mouthful. “It’s wonderful, dear!”  
Hatchworth let out a puff of steam in relief. “I was so worried."  
"About what, dear?" Mrs Chatsworth said, during a pause in chewing.  
"Please, if it isn't be too much trouble, could I perhaps learn to cook with you?”  
She spluttered. "But you're robot, Hatchy, you don't need to eat!"  
"It seems I have no purpose."  
“A purpose?" Mrs Chatsworth placed a hand on the sad bots shoulder. "Everyone has a purpose, Hatchy.”  
“I was not given a job like Wrench and singers. I was born with no expectations or requirements. I am surplus to requirements.”  
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been born with a job to do.”  
“But there is no place for me in this house. I play with Three and Rabbit when they are not practicing. I don’t talk to the other bots.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because they think that sharing a creator excuses them from the way they left me to rust in the library.”  
Whatever Mrs Chatsworth’s response was, it was interrupted by the short red headed man who fell through the door.  
“Ma! Ma, I’ve-” He stopped when he saw Hatchworth. “Oh, hello." He said brightly. "I’m Samuel, I’m in charge of the stables.”  
“I’m Hatchy.”  
“Hatchy here is going to be helping me here in the kitchen from now on.” Mrs Chatsworth put a hand on Hatchworth’s shoulder. “He is very talented in producing Sandwiches.”


	6. Chapter 6

For the next few weeks, the Spine worked by candlelight. He scoured the shelves in the library as quietly as he could; searching for something, anything that would explain his feelings. He had read almost every romance in the library and most of the dramas, but not one of them had a scrap of information pertaining to love and relationships between those of the same gender. Nothing. Not one thing, not even a suggestion that a friendship could have been more. He eventually collapsed in one of the chairs in the centre of the room with his head in his hands and began to feel an emptiness in his core that had nothing to do with the fluctuating mass of pure blue matter.  
“The Spine?” Hatchworth’s voice startled him. “You did not go into stasis with the other bots.”  
“Why are you still awake?”  
“I wanted to find you, and Rabbit said that this is where you usually were when you were sad or angry.” He looked down for a moment, and added: “No one gets left in the library.”  
The Spine immediately felt terrible. “I’m sorry Hatchy, you must hate it in here. Come on,  
we’ll go back to the stasis chambers.”  
“I do not hate anything, especially not the books in the library. They taught me that no matter how bad it is, there will always be a happy ending. I know that we are not family in the way that you and the others are, but you and Rabbit and Three are my best friends, even if you don’t talk to me as much. And Mrs Chatsworth and Samuel say that I could be a Chatsworth with my technical abilities.” He smiled proudly at this, but then the plates on his face shifted to something more contemplative. “I could not feel, and now that makes me feel sad, but this world is beautiful when you have the ability to see it.”  
The Spine sighed. “I was looking for a book.”  
“That’s easy.” Hatchworth said. “I estimate I was in this library for almost a year before they noticed I had a weapon. I know all the books and where they should be kept.”  
“I’m not searching for a title, exactly.”  
“A genre then!”  
“No.” The Spine said. “I… Hatchy, can you keep a secret?”  
“I don’t know, I’ve never tried.”  
“No, I mean, if I tell you something you won’t tell anyone?”  
“Of course not, the Spine.”  
“Good.” He began to absentmindedly fiddle with one of the plates that covered his neck joints. “You’ve heard of love.”  
Hatchworth let out a short blast of steam. “Yes, the Spine. I have a basic knowledge of it.”  
“Have you ever felt it?” The Spine said, moving across the room and towering over the little bot.  
Hatchworth looked puzzled. “Should I?” Hatchworth looked surprised. “I thought that it was meant for humans. I have certainly never been in love.”  
The Spine was very careful to keep his face entirely emotionless as he went to leave the room. “Right you are, Hatchy.”  
“The Spine?”  
“Yes Hatchy?” He said, willing himself not to collapse on the floor.  
“What was your secret?”  
He turned, his face expressionless and his head held high and haughty. “It doesn’t matter, Hatchy. I don’t think you’d understand.”

Peter watched from the second balcony, hunched behind a ladder and a pile of books and began to have a mini panic attack. What had he done? When he’d fitted the bots with the components required for them to form meaningful relationships, he had assumed that they would all court those of the proper gender, and yet from his behaviour over the last few days it would seem that there was a fault in the Spine’s system. Peter decided to fetch the Spine immediately for emergency repairs. His bots were seen as an abomination already, what if the press got hold of the fact that his proudest achievement was not only an act against God but a sexual deviant to boot…

“Colonel? You sent for me?” The Spine yawned in the way that told him it was time for him to power down.  
“Yes, Spine, I did.” Peter said, a grim look on his face. “Sit down.”  
The Spine obeyed. “Colonel?”  
“It has come to my attention that there is a fault with one of the components I installed in you. It controls attraction. I think you know what I mean.”  
The Spine nodded shamefully. “Hatchy.”  
“Yes.” The colonel said gravely.  
“I can’t help it, I didn’t mean for it to happen. But when I’m near him I feel alive. I feel happy.”  
The colonel sighed. “Hatchworth wasn’t fitted with the same components you were. The way you experience love is more powerful than the way he would experience it. He was never really intended to have a romance. And all this is aside from the fact that he is male.”  
The Spine hung his head. “I thought it was unnatural. There are books in the library that detail every possible stage of love between man and woman, and yet there is nothing between man and man. I know that it is as wrong as it could be, but if the only option to fix it is to remove the ability to love altogether, then I would much rather suffer silently than forget what it was to feel this. Because it’s terrible, but it’s wonderful.” He looked into the Colonel’s eyes, his photoreceptors burning brighter than they ever had before. The Colonel sighed.  
“I’ll sleep on it. Off to bed, lad.”


	7. Chapter 7

“A secret?” Rabbit said. “Why wasn’t I informed?! I am the big brother after all!” He huffed out a cloud of steam from his cheek. “What was the secret?”  
“He didn’t say. Just asked if I could keep a secret?”  
“Well,” Three said. “Maybe he’s planning himself a surprise party and he couldn’t tell anyone because they might tell him!”  
“Really, Three,” Rabbit said, shaking his head. “The Spine doesn’t even like surprises. If he was having a party then he would have informed himself of it weeks in advance.” Once again, he turned to Hatchworth. “Did he say anything else?”  
“Nothing much.” Hatchworth said. “Just asked whether or not I had ever been in love.”  
“But, the Spine never keeps his ladies a secret. Everyone knows when he’s courting a new bot.” Three said. “Rabbit, what do you think?”  
Rabbit had gone quiet. “I think we should forget all about it. I think it is the Spine’s business and we shouldn’t be discussing it.”

“I just don’t know where I went wrong.” Peter said, putting down his book. Iris, who lay next to him in bed, put down her book and sighed. This was at least the fourth time he’d said it since they’d settled down for the night. “The other two were fitted with exactly the same system and they seem to be fully functioning. There must be a technical fault, it can’t be the programming.”  
“All three were made exactly the same. You personally saw that all three were perfect. If there’s a fault with any of them, it’s not the Spine. I caught Rabbit making eyes at a dresser today, and the Jon still has his imaginary girlfriends.” Iris took off her glasses and looked Peter in the eye. “I hate to say it dear, but is it a technical fault, or is it a fault with your views?”  
“I’m sorry?” Peter said incredulously.  
“What I mean is, did you programme him to court women, or simply to court?”  
Peter put a hand to his head. “Oh God!”  
Iris nodded to herself.  
“I only assumed that since Rabbit had preferred women, the same system would work for the Spine! I can’t even begin to think how one would go about modifying the technology. I can’t change him. I can’t make him right.” He pushed back his thinning hair, and sighed. “I can’t make it right.”  
“Peter, the fault lies with no one. It was simple chance. What are you going to do?”  
“What can I do?” Peter panicked. “He begged me not to remove it. I can’t simply take away what he was born with. But the poor boy is stuck loving someone who will never return his love, because I was too lazy to fit him with the necessary parts.”  
“Well then, that settles it.” Iris said, with a satisfied expression.  
“What?”  
“You give Hatchworth the necessary components and you let them get on with it in private.”  
“Iris!” Peter huffed. You are asking me to facilitate a terrible crime against nature! I cannot comply.” Peter said shaking his head.  
“For God’s sake, Peter, you created an army of automatons that run on a glowing blue goo, flirt with sideboards and sing like angels. How much more unnatural can you get? Now put your own feelings aside and make it quite clear to them that they are never to speak openly about their love to those they cannot trust.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Now, did you take your tonic?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is all to do with the war and all the not so nice things that go with it, so if that's not your bag then you have been warned.

“Spine?” The Spine was crouched behind a fallen tree in the grounds, muttering to himself when Peter found him. “Spine?”  
He didn’t react.  
“I tried.” Peter said, his stomach twisting. “Retroactively fitting emotional hardware was always a gamble, Spine, you knew that. It’s a good job it didn’t cause any real damage.”  
The Spine dragged his head to face away from the Colonel.  
“And besides, even if it had worked, there would have been no guarantee he would be…” Peter stopped himself. “As yourself.”  
“…someone else who understood! There is no one, not a soul who understands how I feel. I just, I just wanted a ch-chhhhh-chaaaaaaaaaance-” His head began to shake and twitch, getting more violent in his action.  
“It’s alright, Spine, its fine!” Peter leapt towards his creation, as the Spine’s photo receptors began to burn out and his limbs began to stiffen. He hesitated before reaching for the power drain switch at the side of his neck. “Spine? Spine?”  
“Help… me.” He said. His lips did not move. Peter flipped the switch, and watched the light drain from the automaton.  
“Sleep now, son. Sleep.” He said, resting a hand on Spine’s head and not even realising what he had said.

“Hatchworth!” The Spine yelled across the sound of dropping bombs. “What are you doing?”  
“I am not leaving him!” Hatchworth bellowed, as he ploughed through the mud and rain, running for the crater into which he’d seen the boy fall.   
“Hatchworth!” Spine cried.  
“NO!” Was the reply, as he disappeared from sight.  
“Shit!” The Spine said, as stepped out into no man’s land.  
“Spine!” Peter III positively screamed as he fought to keep his head protected from the constant fire. He watched a boy fall, blood pouring from his eye socket, screaming for his mother in German. “Spine! Come back! Please!”

Hatchworth dropped down beside the boy, looking none of his 28 years. The uniform, once pristine as he had walked with the bots to the train that carry him to his future was now torn and missing along with his left leg. His ridiculous moustache, grown because of a constant paranoia that he didn’t look his age, was stark against his bright, white skin. His hair was covered in mud and dust and soot, hardly recognisable as the bright red it had been before this stupid war had taken everything Hatchworth loved and shot at it.  
“Sammy?” Hatchworth said, shaking his shoulder.  
“Hey, Hatchy.” He said, opening his eyes. “Not doing so good, am I?”  
Hatchworth shook his head.  
“Would you do me a favour? One last favour for your old friend before he goes, hey?”  
“Anyth-thing.” Hatchworth said. His face plates began to twitch and leak.  
He reached for the hald rotted corpse he lay next to, and took to pistol from it’s hand. “Shoot me. Right here.” He said, and he summoned the last of his strength to point to the centre of his forehead.  
“Samuel-”  
“Come on Hatchy. I’m gonna go see my Ma.” He smiled, his face twisted with pain. “See if that Spanish Flu’s gonna keep me and my Ma apart.”  
“Samuel, I-”  
“Hatchy, please.” He said, all trace of a smile gone. “I’m full of holes, I’m riddled. I’m bleeding everywhere. We both know where I’m going. I just want it to be done quickly.” He pressed the weapon into Hatchworth’s hand.  
Hatchworth flicked the safety and aimed, just as the Spine began to climb down towards them. He just sat down next to Hatchworth, and put a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. Samuel sniffed and Hatchworth shook, and the Spine sang the song they’d all learnt as they huddled in the camps of England a lifetime ago.  
“It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go.”  
Samuel smiled, and joined in in a whisper.  
“It’s a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know. Goodbye, Picadilly-”  
And Hatchworth fired, as the sound of a mad horse roared in his ears.

The Spine carried the body back without a word. By now, the Germans knew that firing at the tin men was a waste of bullets, so they were left well alone.  
When they dropped into the trench, two men carried Samuel’s body away on a stretcher.  
“He appears to have been shot, after the injury.” The Spine said pointedly.  
“A welcome escape, I would imagine.” The first man said earnestly.  
“A blessing.” The other agreed, seeing Hatchworth’s hide his face.  
As they walked away, and attention faded from the two of them, the Spine slipped a gloved hand into Hatchworth’s.  
Hatchworth did not let go for some time.


End file.
